


No one calls you honey when you're sitting on a throne

by impatientseamstress



Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: Again, Angry Roxanne, Big mistake, Damsel no longer in distress, Defenders Council, F/M, Pre-movie AU, Roxanne accepts Megamind's offer, Temptress, The Defenders Council tries to start shit, evil queen au, with nothing left to lose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29211156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impatientseamstress/pseuds/impatientseamstress
Summary: When you've got nothing left to lose, taking everything is suddenly a much better option. The world has no idea what's coming...
Relationships: Megamind/Roxanne Ritchi
Comments: 53
Kudos: 227





	No one calls you honey when you're sitting on a throne

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song A Little Wicked by Valerie Broussard

Roxanne slams her front door shut, drops her bag and relies on years of practise to stop the scream crawling up her throat.

They did it.

Those fuckwits actually did it.

They fucking repealed the Damsel Protections Act. The last thing standing between her and the "protection" of the Defender's Council. Rage and fear and dread are coiling snakes in her gut and Roxanne digs her fingers into her stomach like clawing out her own intestines could make them stop.

Every protection, every bit of autonomy and independence stripped away like its nothing. Like they don’t even matter. Like the fucking years of swinging above the city and being set on fire and the bruises and the whiplash...and that’s just from the heroes! Like their sacrifices render them incompetent rather than independent individuals making a calculated risk.

Instead full custodial stewardship granted to the Defender’s Council like they’re fucking children.

Hell it doesn’t even look like she’s a citizen anymore. How the fuck is that fair?

How dare they?

_HOW DARE THEY!_

She wants to smash something, or break something, or wrap her hands around the scrawny necks of each and every one of those smug old men sitting in their fancy courtroom and show them what its like to actually face a real threat for once. Instead of being so absolutely certain they’re doing the right thing they didn't even bother to _ask_ the people who go out every day expecting to be kidnapped to stop the rest of the world getting blown to pieces.

Right now she would fucking let it.

Roxanne is _shaking_ she is so angry.

So when her balcony door slides open and a familiar voice says “Miss Ritchi I know now probably isn’t the best time but I just heard-” she doesn’t even allow him to finish his before she whirls on him and says “I’ll do it.”

Megamind freezes, “Do what?”

“Evil Queen. I accept.”

The Supervillain of Metrocity has been wracking his magnificent brain trying to figure out how she's going to deal with this the whole way over. There have to be options...she's never going to stay damsel if it means she has to report to someone else...and that's the best possible outcome given the ominous wording from the repeal handed down today.

Megamind has always known the Defender's Council has never had anyone's interests but their own at heart.

"You do?" he asks stupidly, the storm scouring over the lake sends a rush of cold air in like a slap "I mean of course you do! Why it was only a matter of time before you succumbed to the seduction of supervillainy Miss Ritchi," his eyes light up, "Or should I now call you... _Your Majesty"_ he sweeps into a low bow.

"Do you think this is funny?" Roxanne blazes.

Megamind straightens immediately, "Not at all."

"Because I don't," she continues, not hearing him, "I thought the forced registration was bad. I protested the gag orders and the controlled publications with the rest of them but this!" She slams her hand against the wall and the shelf above her rattles, "They do not get to do this to me!"

She resumes pacing back and forth across her living room as Megamind catches a photo frame that teeters and falls from the shelf. It's a photo of Roxanne and Metro Man, from when she thought he still had her back. She had argued with him, pleaded with him, with any hero she thought would listen. Hell she'd gone down on her knees and fucking _begged_ but every time the party line "The Council knows best Roxie. Why do you care so much anyway?"

In the end not a single hero had stood against the repeal. None of them wanted to risk their oh so holy brand.

Megamind sets the photo face down on the shelf.

"So what happens now?" Roxanne demands, foot tapping a restless staccato beat, "Do I get a raygun?"

"Do you want a raygun?"

"Who doesn't want a rayun!" She flings her hands up, "Actually no, I don't." She whirls on him again, "I want a hundred rayguns! And a flamethrower! And a battle mech! And a giant fuck you laser!"

She stalks towards Megamind who is looking astounded and a little lovestruck at that and drags him close by the edge of his cape, "I want to burn everything from the Defender's Council right up to the highest courts for doing this," she snarls "And I want to dance in the fucking ashes like they're snowflakes when its done!"

Megamind swallows, awed, "Okay," he whispers, "If that's what you want, then...yes - yes we can do that..." His eyes darken and his grin sharpens and he starts to laugh, "Oh yes my dear Miss Ritchi, we can absolutely do that!"

"Good!" Good. Finally. Someone who can match the ugly clawing rage in her heart and isn't going to try and stop her.

"Sir?" Minion's tinny voice echoes out from the watch on Megamind's wrist, "Code: Bad news Sir. Have you found Miss Ritchi yet?"

"Code: Excellent news Minion!" Megamind speaks into his wrist, eyes still on Roxanne, "Miss Ritchi has just agreed to become our Evil Queen."

"Oh wonderful!" Minion's voice sounds...relieved? "Are you still at her apartment?"

"We are, why?"

"Unmarked vans incoming Sir, twelve minutes. Code: I really suggest you get out of there now Sir"

"Code: Understood. We'll be back at the Lair shortly." He holds his hand out to Roxanne, who has stepped back to resume digging her nails into her fists, "Come on,"

"Now?"

"Do you know who is in those vans?"

Roxanne has a pretty good idea. From the look in his eyes Megamind does too.

Before she has time to respond a pounding starts at her door, "Miss Ritchi?" A voice calls, "Helmore and Mason from the Defenders Council. We need to talk to you!"

"Fuck off!" Roxanne snarls.

The pounding stops for a moment, then starts anew, the doorknob rattling as someone on the other side tries to twist it open.

Megamind twists the settings on his de-gun and fires, a sticky film appears over the door and the pounding is suddenly muffled. "That should buy us a couple of minutes" he mutters.

"A couple of minutes for what?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Trust you?!"

"Good point," he shrugs, "I am Evil," He grips her shoulders and looks at her very seriously, "We have twelve minutes to get out of here without being seriously inconvenienced. If you want to be Evil Queen I need you to do exactly what I tell you until we get back to the Lair"

Roxanne hesitates, there is so much rage boiling inside of her she's not even sure she can comprehend that far into the future. Megamind shakes her, "Eleven minutes and forty-five seconds Miss Ritchi! What's it to be?"

"Yes! Fine!"

"Sir?" Minion's voice comes again, "Update that ETA to seven minutes." 

"Oh fantastic," Megamind grumbles and grabs her hand to yank her into her bedroom, "Congratulations Miss Ritchi your first outing as Evil Queen will be even sooner than anticipated."

"My what?"

"Minion is never going to forgive me for not letting him dress you for your first appearance but we will have to work with what we've got." He's pulling clothes out of her wardrobe, flinging shirts and jackets onto the floor as he searches frantically, "Aha!" He pulls out a long plunging halterneck gown she hasn't worn in years out of the back of her wardrobe, "Put that on!" 

A pair of black heels follow one after the other, "And those!"

"Why?" Roxanne starts stripping out of her jacket.

"So we can get out of here!"

"What fucking good is a fancy dress going to do me?" 

"Its not a fancy dress you need a costume!" He dehydrates her purse and tucks it into his belt. "This is why I hate improvising," he growls, "Minion what's the ETA?"

"Five minutes and counting Sir, Murders Four and Five are on their way as honour guard and Two and Three are on standby throughout the city. Did you want the Spee-ider bot out as a distraction?"

"Keep Achilles in reserve for now Minion! We'll meet you back at the Lair"

"Understood Sir. Good luck Miss Ritchi!"

"Do you expect me to believe this is all for show?" Roxanne demands.

"Its Supervillainy Miss Ritchi," his hands are unbuttoning her shirt, "The whole point is the show."

"What the hell does that mean?" she slaps his fingers away and yanks the dress over her head, awkwardly wriggling out of her shirt. Megamind dives back into her wardrobe and emerges with a studded motorcycle jacket from her punk days, "You've been holding out on me" he throws the jacket onto her bed.

"Should've asked" she snaps back, kicking off her skirt as the dress swirls around her ankles.

"Why do you think every hero requires a nemesis?" he demands, "The heroes are not there to keep us in check, we are there to keep them in check!"

Roxanne feels her entire worldview tilt...

...much less than expected actually. 

That makes far too much sense. Really the ruling today was just the icing on the cake. 

"I just wanted my life to be my own," she mumbles, zipping up her dress.

Its far more of a shock when Megamind unclasps his entire cape and mantle and puts his arms around her. "I know," he murmurs, "And I'm sorry, I swear we'll get you out of here and do the best we can."

He steps back and she realises he was settling his cape over her shoulders, "Close enough," he says looking at her critically, then glances at her face, "Make up!" He runs into the bathroom, "And get your shoes on!"

"You expect me to run in a dress and heels?"

"No Miss Ritchi I expect you to look terrifying enough that they'll be too scared to try and stop you in a dress and high heels!"

The thumping at her door comes again, "We know you're in there Ritchi! Open up!"

"Fuck!" Roxanne kicks the stilettos away, the left heel is busted and she's been putting off getting them fixed for months. Instead she runs for her coat closet and shoves her feet into her long black winter boots with the wedge heels. Megamind runs back out of her bathroom with her makeup bag, "Oh much better! Now hold still!" He traces her eyes in a style Roxanne hasn't worn since she was seventeen and almost as angry at the world as she is now.

"You're not actually Evil are you?" She glares past the mascara he's lengthening her lashes with.

He laughs and digs through her makeup bag, "Oh no I very much am Miss Ritchi," he hands her a tube and she slicks her mouth with lipstick the colour of blood, "But there is supposed to be balance between Good and Evil and the Defenders Council has been stacking the deck for years."

"Clearly its time we tilt things in our own favour,"

Megamind looks at her for a moment, dressed to kill and with eyes as unforgiving as an ocean storm, "Past time," He agrees, "And I promise," he takes her face in his hands and presses his brow to hers until all she can see is burning green ire, "That they will pay for what they've done to you."

"Good." Roxanne bites his lip in a fierce ugly kiss that's over before he has time to react.

Megamind freezes again, stunned, "What was- not that I'm opposed- not at all- but I'm not sure you're aware Evil Queen doesn't actually require-"

Roxanne stares then drops onto the side of her couch so she can zip up her boots, "Forget it," She wanted him to kiss her back. She wanted him to bite her back. She wanted to claw her way into the skin of someone as furiously angry as she is and bloody herself on the jagged edges of shared rage.

"Forget it...right" Megamind touches the tip of his tongue to the bruise flowering on his lip and looks at her out of the corner of his eye, "Right! Anyway! Next we need to-"

The door to her apartment bursts open.

"Miss Ritchi?" Two men in plain suits and mediocre ties marking them as government employees stumble from her decoupaged door into her living room, "The Defenders Council requires you to come with us."

Roxanne stands and turns, the cape sweeps around her and the men fall back as she strides towards them. "You!" Roxanne is not tall but in the boots, with the cloak and the spikes at her shoulders, she rises until she is towering over them, "How dare you come here!"

Megamind has never seen anything so magnificent.

One of the men scrabbles for a radio at his waist, "Code Black! We have a Code Black! Ritchi's gone rogue!"

"Rogue!" She storms, "This isn't rogue you unmitigated little ingrates! This is me no longer putting up with your bullshit! You are going to spend the rest of your miserable little lives regretting what you've done today and I will see to it personally," she hisses as she looms over them, "That you are held responsible!"

"Code black! I repeat Code Black!"

"I knew you were going to be magnificent Temptress," Megamind says casually, stepping out from behind Roxanne as he slips her leather jacket over his shoulders "But I never thought it would get to the point where I wouldn't even rate a mention."

"Oh shit," The one not holding a walkie talkie breathes. His colleague whimpers, "Code Bl-" Roxanne kicks the radio out of his hand and stomps on it.

"Ooh good thinking," Megamind tilts his head, looking down at the two men. The sleeves of her jacket are a little short on him but he pushes them up over the spikes on his forearms and grins wide and delighted, "Big mistake."

From outside Roxanne's apartment the elevator dings, heavy boots tread down the corridor and stop near her door. 

"Y-you didn't think we'd come alone did you?" The now walkie-talkieless Helmore and/or Mason says with false bravado. The corridor outside her apartment creaks slowly under the weight of the enforcers outside.

Megamind grips Roxanne's elbow through the cape and starts tugging her back towards her balcony doors, "Didn't think so," Megamind says lightly, his de-gun trained on the terrified council reps, "But its always so nice to be proven right."

Roxanne can see an armoured shoulder in the reflection of her hallway mirror and glares balefully at the men on her floor, "Really didn't want to wait around huh," she says bitingly.

"Those are for your protection!" One of them pleads, "You can still come in peacefully." There is a hum and a small blue cube drops into the space where he had been lying.

"Tell me you have a plan," Roxanne mutters as they keep backing out onto her balcony. A troupe of masked figures moving with military precision flood into her, (now former, she supposes) apartment as they reach the balcony wall. The sound of tranquilliser guns and rifles cocking fills the air.

"I have a plan," Megamind leaps up and crouches behind the spikes on her shoulder, still keeping his de-gun trained on the remaining rep "For a start it involves not dying. The rest of it just relies on..." A faint series of bowgs floats up from the space below them, "Aha!"

"Ma'am," an auto-tuned voice comes from one of the masked figures, "If you step away now this can still be resolved without bloodshed. We'll even let you keep your job as a gesture of the Council's goodwill."

Roxanne stares down at the evidence of the Defender's Council's goodwill invading her apartment and feels the blood roaring in her ears. Behind her, Megamind finishes signalling the swarm of brain-bots gathered below.

"You've always been good at refusing to show fear before Miss Ritchi" the admiration in his voice comes from behind, with the collar in the way she can't see him without turning her head and she refuses to look away from the guns aiming at them. "Now step back...back...and in a moment you're going to take my hand and jump."

"This really isn't what it looks like," the remaining rep begs, scrambling up to hide behind the first line of troopers.

"Isn't it?" Roxanne asks sarcastically, "But you know what?" She grabs Megamind's hand and jumps as he pulls her up onto the balcony wall beside him, "This is!"

The cape flares around both of them, blue and black and bright feral smiles silhouetted against the rolling dark clouds of the oncoming storm. A swarm of murderous looking cyborgs rises up and hovers in formation, steel claws snapping and crackling blue energy arcing under glass domes.

In the apartment, an entire squad of elite trained enforcers suddenly doesn't seem anywhere near enough.

"Gentlemen!" Megamind announces loudly, "I'm not at all sorry to disappoint you but I think you'll find yourselves short a damsel today!" He fires a sizzling red warning shot that shatters the glass doors into the apartment and the enforcers flinch back.

Roxanne feels the wind tearing at her skin, hears the hum of the swarm around them and twines her fingers with gloved ones until her nails are digging into the leather.

Megamind watches her out of the corner of his eye and sees her smile like shattered glass. "On the count of three..." He squeezes her hand once.

"Ma'am!" one of the enforcers tries to order her down, "Ma'am you can't do that!"

Twice.

Roxanne laughs, "Watch me!" 

Together on three they leap off the balcony into the swarm.

* * *

They land in a tumble on the Lair floor. Travelling by brain-bot swarm is never easy, especially when you're being shot at. Megamind finds his feet first and offers Roxanne his hand. She takes it and stands, raking her fingers through windblown hair as she catches her breath.

"Sir? Miss Ritchi?" Minion hurries out and stops dead at the sight of Roxanne's head rising behind a wide black collar, "Oh Sir you didn't,"

"Defender's Council were impatient," Megamind explains to his finfallen henchfish, "We had to improvise." 

Minion sighs, "I understand." He tilts in his dome and frowns thoughtfully at Miss Ritchi, "I still think we can do better,"

"Of course my dear Minion, nothing but the best!"

"Understood Sir. Miss Ritchi, if you'll come this way I'm sure we can start work on something a little less derivative."

"Derivative?" Roxanne asks, running her fingers over the spikes, "Oh but I _like_ these..."

If a fish could rock back on their heels, Minion did the equivalent in his bowl, "I see." He glances at Megamind who is busy tearing down the last ideas cloud and dragging over boards and displays. The supervillain looks up for a moment and grins and Minion suddenly wonders if the rest of the world feels the same shiver that just went up his spines.

"Although," He turns his attention back as Roxanne taps one nail thoughtfully over the steel studs and smiles, "I think I could go for something a little... _sharper_."

Minion's answering grin shows just as many teeth, "Leave it to me Miss Ritchi. I have some samples made up you can look over, if you'd like to follow me?"

Roxanne looks around the lair with a proprietorial eye and smiles hungrily at the sight of Achilles the spider-bot, rumbling at attention in one corner, "I'll meet you in a moment Minion."

Minion wisely withdraws to his sewing room, spinning excitedly in his bowl. A Master and a Mistress! Oh could a henchfish ever be so lucky!

"Where do you want to start Miss Ritchi?" Megamind is standing by a blank board with the title World Domination already scrawled up top. Roxanne looks at it and feels her heart beat faster.

She stalks across the room, grabs his collar in both hands and yanks him towards her, "I want to make them _scream_ ," she hisses.

His hands come up and gently take hold of her wrists, "Then scream they shall," he vows darkly. "Roxanne, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for someone like you to join me."

"You have?"

His thumbs press down on her pulse points "I can build anything, invent anything but they'll never take me seriously. I'll always be too blue, to comical-"

"You're comical on purpose,"

"Sometimes," he allowed, "I'm a known quantity, I've kept myself safe that way. How bad can a bad guy really be if he can never quite beat the hero, never really hurt the damsel? More ridiculous than reviled..." His hands tighten and he grins viciously, "But you, oh Roxanne you are going to be _terrifying_. They are going to fear even speaking your name. They will rue ever so much as thinking of doing this to you!"

Roxanne can feel fire curling in her stomach, there is rage singing in her veins and she almost feels like she's floating, anchored only by her fingers on his collar and his hands on her wrists.

"I am going to burn this world," she hears herself say, Megamind's grin sharpens.

"Yes," he growls triumphantly, "We are."

This time when she kisses him he bites her back.

**Author's Note:**

> For a movie all about how heroes aren't born, they're made, I sure do love writing about what happens when the good guys go bad and the bad guys go worse.


End file.
